How to Save a Life
by TyriaT
Summary: GregNick friendship. A case gets to Greg. Nick helps him talk about it.


**Title:** How To Save a Life

**Author:** Tyria

**Rating:** K

**Disclaimer:** Let me check… Nope, still not mine.

**AN:** As always a huge thank you to my beta LosingInTranslation. The song is "How to Save a Life" by The Fray.

I haven't thought about this in years, but I heard this song and was forced to remember. This is dedicated to Corey, I don't know why you decided you had to leave but you are missed, and Ryan, to have to live with this makes you so much stronger than I.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Grissom walks through the door with the assignment slips in his hand and addresses his crew waiting for him in the breakroom. "Sara and Catherine, you have a 426. The victim is being treated at the hospital, and the SAE kit is waiting for processing."

They both stand with somber looks on their faces. Catherine takes the slip out of Grissom's extended hand while Sara walks beside her and out the door.

"Warrick, you're with me. Possible days old body dump with extensive insect activity."

"More collection practice?" Grissom nods his head and Warrick sighs. "Let the bugs die just one time, and you never live it down."

"Especially with an entomologist as a boss," Greg pipes up.

"You're just lucky we were able to catch the perpetrator without the timeline. I'll meet you at the car. I'm driving so you can concentrate on the insects on the way back." Grissom turns to the remaining two CSI's. "Nick, Greg, probable suicide. Just need you to collect the evidence for confirmation."

"You got it, boss," Nick says as he plucks the slip out of Grissom's grasp.

"I'll drive, Nick."

Nick gives a snort. "No way, Greggo. I've been through your drivin' and there's no way I'm going through that again."

"Fine. But I get control of the radio," Greg taunts as he walks out the door.

Grissom smirks at the look of dread that falls over Nick's face. "Melior vos quam mihi."

Nick calls after him as he leaves the room. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Grissom turns back towards him as he walks through the doorway. "Better you than me," he says, then winks and walks away.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Nick was relieved to find that Greg was keeping the music at a relatively normal level. He only had to speak up about Greg's handling of the radio one time. As they made their way to the scene a song began to play that was actually very enjoyable.

_Step one you say we need to talk  
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk  
He smiles politely back at you  
You stare politely right on through  
Some sort of window to your right  
As he goes left and you stay right  
Between the lines of fear and blame  
You begin to wonder why you came_

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend_

Suddenly, Greg's arm shot out across the truck and the station was hastily changed.

"Hey! I was enjoying that song! Put it back!"

Getting no reaction, Nick glanced over at Greg to see him leaning stiffly back into his seat with his head turned sharply to the window and his arms crossed in front of his body, almost as though he was trying to give himself a hug.

"Greg?"

He heard a sniff, and then Greg turned towards him, as he made his body posture more relaxed. "Geesh, are we there yet? I swear you drive like my grandma." He gave Nick a forced grin.

"You, my friend, need to learn patience." He was about to ask Greg what was wrong when Greg turned up the volume of the radio, which pretty much ended all talk for the rest of the ride over.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Detective O'Riley walks over to them as the CSI's enter the house just off the WLVU campus. "Body's upstairs. A Marcus Wissman. Found by his roommate, Ken Pardon. Looks like a single gunshot wound to the head. The gun was found near the body."

"Ok, I'll take the roommate. You start collecting upstairs."

He starts moving towards the roommate when a quiet "Nick?" stops him in his tracks. He turns to Greg, worry showing in his face.

"Yeah, Greg?"

It's glaringly obvious that Greg isn't really paying attention to Nick, instead he focuses solely on the roommate, so Nick clears his throat. "How about I talk to Ken? I know what it feels…I've had some experience with this before."

Nick frowns. Ever since the car ride over, Greg's behavior has been completely out of character, and it is really worrying him. "Are you sure?"

Greg catches the look on Nick's face and flashes another phony grin at him. "I'm always sure." Without another word, he walks over to the roommate to get the story of what happened.

Nick keeps his eyes on Greg as he addresses O'Riley. "Keep an eye on him for me, will ya? I don't want him to think I'm babying him, but..." The bristle-haired detective nods and Nick heads upstairs to start on the body.

O'Riley walks up just as Greg begins his questioning. He finds both young men sitting at the kitchen table. "What time did you get home?"

"Ten ten."

"You're sure about that?"

"Oh, yeah... We were supposed to go to the movies tonight. We were gonna leave at ten, but I got caught up in my research again." Ken stops to take a huge breath before continuing. "When I finally looked at a clock, I realized I was going to be late getting home, so I hurried back as fast as I could. As soon as I entered the door, I looked at my watch and was relieved I was only ten minutes late."

"Were you late a lot?" Greg interjects.

He gives a snort of laughter and smiles. "Yeah." His face falls suddenly, "That was always a running joke between us." He puts his elbows on the table and holds his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

Suddenly, Ken slaps his hand down on the table and gets up to pace agitatedly. "I thought I had talked him out of it. I thought he was fine...that he was ok."

Greg frowns at his comments, "What do you mean?"

Ken heaves a sigh and stops moving, keeping his back to Greg. "A couple weeks ago, I was studying for a midterm happening the next day, when I got a call from Marcus. He started talking about how futile everything is and how the world needs fewer people. I realized that he was way to close to the edge, so I kept talking to him while I ran back to the house. When I got there, I sat him down and tried to pull him back from that edge. We ended up talking all night and I missed my midterm."

_Let him know that you know best  
Cause after all you do know best  
Try to slip past his defense  
Without granting innocence  
Lay down a list of what is wrong  
The things you've told him all along  
And pray to God he hears you  
And pray to God he hears you_

"Is this when the disturbance was reported?" O'Riley asks.

"Yeah. We got a little loud, and there were times we were yelling at each other, but I was not giving up until he heard me. Like actually understood what I meant, not just heard what I was saying."

_As he begins to raise his voice  
You lower yours and grant him one last choice  
Drive until you lose the road  
Or break with the ones you've followed  
He will do one of two things  
He will admit to everything  
Or he'll say he's just not the same  
And you'll begin to wonder why you came_

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life_

Ken walks back over to the chair and flops down onto it. "I don't know what happened. I thought everything was fine. I really thought everything was fine." He says as he shakes his head and looks down at the table

Greg speaks up. "Hey, you were able to talk to him once and calm him down. That takes a strong and dedicated friend, believe me I know. You can't blame yourself for a decision he made, although I know you're going to." Greg pauses and looks the man over. "Do you have another friend, or a girlfriend?"

Ken nods in response.

"Have you called that person yet?"

Ken shakes his head slowly back and forth.

"Call them. You're gonna need them right now, and they're gonna want to be here for you." Greg waits until Ken pulls out his cellphone and dials before standing up. "Thanks for all your help."

He rushes out of the kitchen and through the back door. He hears the muffled voice of O'Riley yelling something, but ignores it. The backyard fades away as his memories begin swirling around him. Faster and faster they spin making him dizzy.

Nick's hand on his shoulder pulls him violently back to the present. "Greg?"

Greg's head whips over to look at Nick. "Nick." He blinks a couple of times to get himself back under control, then looks back at the house. "The scene...We've still gotta process the house."

Nick tightens his grip on Greg's shoulder keeping him in place. "You wanna talk about what's bugging you first…before we head back in there?"

"No, I'm…No." He looks Nick in the eye. "Let's just get this done." Nick lets Greg lead the way back inside.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

They begin driving back to the lab in silence. After a couple of miles, Greg speaks up while looking out the side window.

"It was my Sophomore year in high school. A friend of mine called me during the middle of the week. We talked for a couple of hours. I could hear something in his voice…almost pleading…or desperation…before he asked me to come over to his place and continue talking. It was a school night, so my mom refused to allow me to go over to his house. She also reminded me that I had another 15 minutes before I had to hang up 'cause I had to go to sleep or I'd never make it to school the next day. We ended the call, and I went to bed not knowing what was gonna come next."

Nick looks over at Greg and can see his chest heaving under the strain of his story and his fists clenching and unclenching. He slowly pulls the Tahoe over to the curb and gives Greg his undivided attention.

"I woke up to the phone ringing continuously. I glanced over at my alarm, saw that it was 4am, and wondered who on earth would call at that time of night. I walked out of my room in time to hear my mom answer the phone. I heard her talking a little to the person on the other end. When I came into view, she put the conversation on hold with her hand over the mouthpiece. She said the voice sounded like my friend's mother, but she couldn't understand a single word. I asked for the phone and she handed it over, the dread settling hard in my gut. I answered the phone, letting the person on the other end know it's me. All I heard was crying, and then the sound grew faint. Next thing I knew, I'm being handed off to my friend's dad, and he was the one who told me what happened."

Knowing what is coming, Nick tries to stop him. "Greg--"

"He was dead. For some reason, he decided life wasn't worth living anymore and he killed himself. And he called me." Greg sniffs hard and pounds his head once against the glass. "He reached out to me, and I wasn't there for him."

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life_

"Greg."

He turns to Nick, for the first time acknowledging the other man. Nick can see the tears trying to escape his friend's eyes. Greg sniffs again and wipes a hand over his face. "Don't worry, Nick. I know it's not my fault. Me and my mother…my poor mother blamed herself so much for forcing me to get off that phone. We ended up going into therapy together." He takes a huge breath to calm himself. "But sometimes things just become too hard and the blame comes back at me full force. I don't think I'll ever lose the guilt completely, but I've learned to live with it."

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life_

He looks at Nick again and grimaces. "I'm sorry."

Nick holds his gaze. "Don't be. We all have things from our past that have hurt or changed us." Nick pauses for a moment, thinking back to his own horrible childhood experience, before remembering a piece of wisdom he has learned over the years. "I bet it feels pretty good to let that out."

Greg gives a half-smile. "Yeah, a bit. I like to keep his memory alive. He really was a good friend; kind, funny, and always there for me. Reminds me of another person I know…"

"Your friend…what was his name," Nick asks softly.

Greg looks into his eyes and answers his question just as softly. "Nick."


End file.
